


Saudade

by seratonation



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-06
Updated: 2012-03-06
Packaged: 2017-11-01 13:37:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seratonation/pseuds/seratonation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Portuguese) The feeling of longing for someone that you love and is lost. Another linguist describes it as a “vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist.”<br/>It’s interesting that saudade accommodates in one word the haunting desire for a lost love, or for an imaginary, impossible, never-to-be-experienced love. Whether the object has been lost or will never exist, it feels the same to the seeker, and leaves her in the same place:  She has a desire with no future. Saudade doesn’t distinguish between a ghost, and a fantasy. Nor do our broken hearts, much of the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [ghostingthespace](http://ghostingthespace.tumblr.com/) who asked for post-Reichenbach angst, focusing on John encompassing the word [Saudade](http://maywestaylost.tumblr.com/post/18842595109/saudade). Beta'd by the wonderful [](http://liamar13.livejournal.com/profile)[**liamar13**](http://liamar13.livejournal.com/).

It wasn’t easy at first. Lestrade suggested he get a smaller place maybe, but John didn’t want to go back to living in a lifeless flat. At least here he had set down roots, and someone needed to keep an eye out for Mrs. Hudson.

At least, that’s what he told himself. He got a job at a clinic, abandoned his blog, and went back to living a routine. He wasn’t alone; he was around people constantly, even if he never strayed from the usual paths to work or to the store. His life diminished to those three places and he didn’t mind. Those roads were familiar, safe.

Sherlock was everywhere. It became easier to ignore after a while, or at least to live with it. A constant dull ache in his chest that told him something was wrong, something was missing.

Three months after it happened he found himself at the supermarket. He picked up Sherlock’s favourite tea because he had seen it was down to the last bag that morning.

It didn’t really register until he was home and putting it away that Sherlock wasn’t coming home late. He wasn’t coming home at all, and suddenly it was hard to breathe. He managed to limp towards the bedroom where he kept his pills and took one.

He sat on the bed and tried to calm down. His breathing eventually evened out and he put his head in his hands. This wasn’t meant to happen anymore. Some days he wondered if Sherlock had even been real. Some days he couldn’t even remember his voice.

Everything that had happened felt so far away, like a dream. The more he tried to focus on it, the more the memories slipped through his fingers. Those days he would log on and read the old entries of his journal. Sometimes it would still feel like a fairy tale, as if it had happened to someone else, not him, boring old John Watson.

He knew that eventually he’ll have to move on. His therapist tells him as much every so often. She mentions the future, tries to make him plan for it, next week, next month, next year, but John can’t stand it. He can see the future stretching ahead of him, long and empty and he doesn’t want to be part of it.

He can’t move out of the apartment. He can’t plan for the future. All he can do is remind himself to get out of bed, to live his life, that eventually the ache will just become part of him.

Sherlock’s shade might even fade from all the dark corners, but John hopes it doesn’t. It makes him feel less lonely. 


End file.
